


King Maker

by MarbleGlove



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Burn Bright spoilers, Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 03:33:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleGlove/pseuds/MarbleGlove
Summary: Leah Cornick is no Lady Macbeth; she wears her bloodstains with pride.





	King Maker

**Author's Note:**

> this is unrelated to my other Leah stories and is in direct response to the latest Alpha & Omega book: Burn Bright, so includes spoilers both large and small. It takes place immediately after the end of that book.

“Your son asked me what I thought would change if you loved me.” Leah spoke casually even as she rode him, slow and steady, her hands spread out on his chest to give her leverage.

Bran shuddered, but didn’t respond. He kept his hands on his hips, guiding her movement. Leah scraped her nails gently on his chest, her eyes wolf bright. His own weren’t quite there yet, but they would be soon.

“I don’t think he knew what he was asking. He thinks I want your love, but you aren’t capable of love, are you?” Her voice was sweet and cruel. “You are too fractured for it. Your Bran-self and your wolf-self.”

It was true.

Bran hates his wolf. His monster.

“How different the world would be if Bran could love his wolf’s mate.” Her words were cutting even as her body welcomed him.

He hated his wolf; he hated and feared it. He used the power his wolf provided but he wanted nothing to do with the wolf itself. It was one of the reasons why he didn’t like Leah either, why he had to work hard not to hate her just as much. She was his wolf’s mate and she never let him forget that.

Leah’s wolf was one of the rare submissive wolves, whose instincts were to give ground rather than to fight, to accept protection and provide support rather than demand independence and fight for control. When everything else in the world fought against Bran’s wolf, Bran himself at the front of the line, Bran’s mate and wife offered safe harbor and submission. She welcomed his wolf with open arms and gave him peace that no one else did. It was not the peace of sleep like an Omega werewolf offered, that Bran would have found easier to accept, but the peace of being in uncontested control.

And it was offered to Bran’s wolf, who Bran hated, who Bran fought to keep from gaining control.

It was also offered to Bran. Leah allowed, even invited him to take the control he needed, in all ways but one: she wouldn’t stand with him against his own wolf. And he could never quite forgive her for that even if it was exactly what he needed, one of the many reasons he had asked her to marry him.

“What do you think would be different?” He asked, struggling to keep his voice steady, to demonstrate that much remaining control over his body and over his wife and over his wolf. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. He wasn’t even sure if it was him asking or his wolf, because his wolf was here too. His monster wolf who did love, with all the devotion it was capable of, this woman he had married.

They were good in bed together, but Leah never let him be the only one. His wolf was always there too, always rising to her call. As much as he hated that, it also soothed him, because sex with Leah was the one situation where he and his wolf desired and acted as one.

“In actions? Maybe nothing,” she said, as she used her body to make love to him. “But don’t you wish I would make love to Bran alone? And don’t I wish I could just talk with my mate?”

His mother had forced the Change on Bran and then used his wolf to bind him. They had survived, but not without their scars, each hating the other for their weakness. Each using the other for their strength.

And one of his wolf’s strengths was Leah.

She never fought him for control, but she was his closest advisor and ruthless in her thoughts and her demands. She was a king-maker.

She had been the mistress and advisor of a rising caudillo when Bran had first met her in post-colonial South America. An illegitimate daughter in a Catholic colony, her blond hair and height making her stand out even more, she understood the rules of power better than anyone else Bran had ever known. He had challenged her lover for her and the fact that she had allowed that challenge to proceed had both pleased and concerned him.

But she had her own sense of loyalty. She had ensured that it was a fair duel and that both he and her lover had something to gain and something to lose from participating in the duel. He had risked his freedom in order to gain her for herself. And her lover had risked his primary bed-warmer and advisor in order to gain a dominant werewolf for his forces.

Bran had won, and gone on to become Marrok.

He could not have done so without her by his side: beautifully invisible and sweetly ruthless, she was observant and judgmental, demanding and practical, suspicious and clever. She had become his, like an honorable mercenary, bought and paid for, and advised him truly for centuries. But it was his wolf to whom she was truly devoted. His wolf who accepted her entirely and offered all of its strength to her protection.

It had been decades later that Bran had looked up what happened with Leah’s previous lover. He had done well enough but never achieved the heights of success he had hoped for. Bran hadn’t been sure why he’d even bothered to find out, but Bran’s wolf had been a source of smug pleasure whenever he thought of it.

Leah was Bran’s third wife and the one he’d been married to by the far the longest.

He barely remembered his first wife, although he was sure she had been a good woman. She had fulfilled the role of wife and mother and home-maker. What else had been needed?

His second wife was a thousand years later and continent away. His beautiful Blue Jay Woman who he’d only had for five years before she decided that she wanted a child more than she wanted her life. That was how he phrased it to himself. The first time Leah had pointed out that “his Ophelia” had suicided rather than deal with his crap was also the last time he’d willingly mentioned Blue Jay Woman to her.

He wasn’t entirely sure Leah had been wrong.

Leah was his third wife, and he’d married her for a purpose. He’d married her because he wanted her to do a job. Much like his first wife, she was fulfilling a role. Unlike his first wife, the role was not a common one. He’d wanted to bring together all the wolves, to become a king, and he knew that all successful kings are married to king-makers.

They weren’t home-makers, necessarily. They didn’t sooth and calm. They were king-makers who inspired and pushed and supported and demanded and advised.

Leah was that.

He often didn’t like her, but she demanded that he fulfill his role, and he used her to push himself to greater and greater heights. When she spoke, he listened.

And when they had sex, when she knew he and his wolf were both present, was often when she spoke the truest. He had learned to pay attention to her words even as his skin burned with desire and his blood pounded beneath his flesh.

“Delegation is important. But if you ever abdicate your responsibilities again, I’ll look for your replacement. Do you understand?”

“What?”

“You left your son the task to find and kill a traitor because you thought it was me?” She wasn’t going to let him out of this.

“I’m sorry.”

“Tell me what you’re sorry for.”

“I’m sorry for doubting you.”

Her nails scrapped over his chest again, this time leaving welts behind. “That’s the wrong thing. Doubt me all you like, I’ll prove you wrong.” She paused enough to break their rhythm, to grind unexpectedly and twist her body, and he shifted his hands to her waist to feel the muscles tense and flex under his hands. “Until maybe one day, I don’t. But if ever I need to be killed, I expect you to do it yourself.”

“I can’t…” He started, and his wolf growled inside of him at even that hint of weakness.

“The Marrok doesn’t get to say he can’t.”

“Then maybe…”

“No.” Leah cut him off again. “You made yourself the Marrok. You take responsibility for what you have done. You take responsibility for what you have agreed to do. The Marrok puts down those wolves that require putting down. And I will tell you this: I’ll never interfere in a dominance battle, because those you must win for yourself. But if my mate, your wolf, ever requires killing, I’ll do it myself because it is something you need.”

He shifted his hands from Leah’s waist to her breasts, cupping and squeezing them, distracting her from her words. It worked, but too slowly to truly stem the tide.

“Werewolves don’t die natural deaths. Offering an alternative to violence and pain is part of taking care of each other,” she trailed off as she arched into his hands, her head back and her neck bared.

He thrust up into her, speeding up their rhythm, making her shudder and gasp, reaching for the point where both of their focus narrowed to the purely physical, the point where they could both be satisfied. He knew he wasn’t a good husband to her, but he could be a great lover. He was sorry for doubting her and he knew he could never kill her, never take care of her in the way she asked. But he could take care of her in this way.

She was gasping now, and unable to speak, but matching every thrust.

He was so close, his body tightening like a cord about to snap. If his eyes could focus, he was sure there would be fire dancing on their skin.

Almost, almost…

And then pain like a cold dose of reality jerked him right back.

His wolf roared and rolled them, and pressed Leah down, back into the mattress, her arms held above her head, her fingers red with blood from where she’d sunk her claws in. She looked up at him fearlessly, as if she weren’t still panting with desire while she wore his blood on her hands. Her legs were wrapped around his waist and he continued to thrust uncontrollably for a moment, still hard inside her even as his chest chained him to reality with pain before it began to heal. He wrestled for control of himself, forcing himself to be still and let his weight force Leah to stillness as well.

It only sort of worked, as her internal muscles still gripped and throbbed.

“Leah!”

She bared her teeth up at him, not so much in threat as in demonstration. “We tell new wolves that wolves never hurt their mates. But that’s not exactly true, now is it.”

His wolf acknowledged her truth. It had to. His wolf had taken Leah for his mate because it knew it could rely on her. She submitted totally to him, never fighting for control, always offering all that she could to it, including pain when it needed that too. It could rely on her to open herself to him and give him succor, but also rely on her to hold steady and give him a safety net as well. Werewolves didn’t die of natural causes. They died by violence and by suicide.

Bran did his best to help the members of his pack live good lives but he also helped them to die good deaths, if that was what they needed. He offered them an option to go out in their sleep, to lie down with love and protection and never again have to wake up to the pain and madness of endless life.

He gave that to his wolves, and Leah had made sure that he knew it was available to him too. Wasn’t that safety net what had allowed them to stay alive for so long already? Why had he thought he could get out of offering that safety to Leah as well?

When he had thought she’d betrayed the pack, he had left in order to give Charles space to kill his mate. It was perhaps a worse betrayal than anything he had thought she had done.

His wolf hadn’t wanted to leave her, but Bran was used to ignoring the desires of his wolf. And maybe that was it: he was so used to ignoring his wolf’s demands that he hadn’t been able to tell the difference between his wolf refusing to kill its mate and his wolf knowing that its mate didn’t need to die.

He rested his head down on the crook of her neck to just breath for a while. He didn’t withdraw from her, though, and she didn’t continue to torment him.

She held herself still, allowing him time, her muscles still grasping him tightly, throbbing around him, her breath pressing her against him, but she wasn’t trying to distract him like he had been.

“I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. This time he knew he really was sorry. He could never abandon her like that again. “I’m sorry.”

He lifted himself up a bit, and moved her arms lower on the bed so he had more leverage to begin moving again, long and slow withdrawals and thrusts that she arched into, using just her legs around his hips. He kept her hands pinned down, but shifted so that their fingers entwined.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. He needed her to accept the apology. “I’m sorry.”

“You are the Marrok. You must act like it.”

“Yes. I am and I will. I’m sorry.”

“And I am the Marrok’s mate.”

“Yes, you are.”

She nodded up at him and said, “Good.”

That was the end of their words, except for the gasps and the groans and finally, finally the climax.

Afterwards, they lay in bed next to each other, and Bran thought about all she had said, and all his wolf had felt.

He was not happy about being nearly disemboweled in his own bed, but at the same time it had been a pointed reminder not to forget who she was.

There’s no such thing as playing good-cop/bad-cop in a werewolf pack. Maybe Charles and Anna could… maybe, while Anna was still young… before she truly came into her own. But generally speaking, werewolves didn’t do good cops. The closest we could get was omniscient werewolf and stupid werewolf. And that was how Bran and Leah had played their pack for centuries. Although it was only partly intentional.

For all that Bran was fractured in his conflict with his wolf, Leah had her own difficulties with her own wolf. Or not necessarily difficulties with her wolf, so much as the pack’s perception of her wolf. As the Marrok’s mate, Leah’s wolf held equal dominance to her mate, carrying the proxy for his dominance. None of the other wolves looked further than that power via her mate bond. They saw her instincts for submission, knew they weren’t the right reactions for a dominant werewolf, and thought her stupid without giving it further thought.

Bran knew better than to think he was truly omniscient, but he needed to work harder to remember that Leah was far from stupid. She was submissive rather than dominant, but she was so much more than that.

She was petty and vindictive, but also loyal and far-seeing. She was scared of angry men, and her response to that fear was to manipulate them rather than confront them. Except for her mate.

Bran was scared of his own wolf, and yet Leah was utterly fearless when it was her mate. His wolf rumbled inside of him in satisfaction at that thought. His mate should never be scared of him. Even if he killed her, she should never be scared; even if she killed him, it would still be an intimacy reserved for his mate. The wolf settled happily with that thought.

Bran wished he didn’t understand so completely the reassurance that Leah offered to his wolf: that she would support him in both life and death.

Although that thought reminded him: “You said that you’d look for my replacement if I forsook my responsibilities again.”

“Mm-hmm.”

She shouldn’t have to look far, since Charles was the obvious choice. But, “You don’t think Charles is the right choice to be the Marrok after me.“

“Certainly not yet.”

“Why?”

“I took over the finances for six months.”

“Yes.”

“He thinks I lost nearly a fifth of the pack’s net worth and that he fixed it in two weeks.”

Bran sighed. “He’s not that stupid. He does know finances. Maybe that’s just what he’s saying. You know he doesn’t like you.” 

“He does know finances. But he hates me more. I’m at bitch-eating-crackers for him. He can’t see me past his own dislike.” She sounded smug, like it was an accomplishment. And it was an accomplishment, to be invisible to the eyes of a man like Charles and a wolf like Charles’ Brother Wolf.

No other wolf alive today had met Leah before she was his mate, so none of them knew that her wolf was submissive. Bran had thought that some of his wildlings, the older wolves who had experienced so much, might have recognized her nature even masked as it was by Bran’s dominance via the mate bond. If not one of the wildlings, then Charles, who could see almost as clearly as his mother and his grandfather.

Bran was virtually sure that Charles’ grandfather had known, when he told Bran that he understood: “Blue Jay Woman was for Bran, Leah is for the wolf.”

Bran knew that Charles’ grandfather had tried to speak to Leah as well, but Leah had actively avoided such knowing eyes. Her avoidance of his grandfather had also set the path for Leah and Charles’ antagonistic relationship.

“What did you even do that cost that much?”

“I divested the pack from fossil fuels. They’re a bubble waiting to break, and we don’t want to deal with their messes anyway.”

“Charles has wanted to divest from fossil fuels for decades.” Bran commented even as he wondered vaguely if other mated pairs had discussions like this as their pillow talk.

“Divesting from anything is expensive. Especially when other people are as well.”

“Charles didn’t re-invest.” Bran knew that just from knowing his son.

“He couldn’t anyway: I already invested the results in real estate.”

Bran sighed. Leah trusted real estate investments much more than she did banks or stocks. She also had a tendency to keep an eye out for ghost towns surrounded by wilderness with an eye for spaces that could be monopolized by werewolf packs, without any need to fit in with humans. Such spaces tended to be relatively cheap to buy, in part because they had virtually no resale value.

The fact that Charles wouldn’t have been able to undo the purchases or sell them off again had undoubtedly been part of her decision. Bran would look over the land allotments later and see if there were any packs that would be interested in them. But that was for later. For now, “What did Charles do?”

“He did a bunch of day trading to make up the difference.”

“He doesn’t like doing that.” Charles enjoyed hunting for companies on the verge of success. The relatively straight-forward gambling on pattern recognition that made up day-trading he considered both boring and beneath him.

Leah shrugged. She didn’t care.

“He wanted to make a point. To show how quickly he could fix your error.”

Leah hummed agreement, but her eyes were closed again.

“He should have agreed with you.”

“Is a correct decision for the wrong reason still a correct decision? Your son often agrees with my actions, but rarely with my reasons.” She kept her eyes closed and wiggled a bit in his arms, making a point of getting herself more comfortable.

He curled up more around her so that her head could be supported on his arm and he could keep a loose hold on one of her wrists. He thought he could see a small smile on her lips at that before she fully relaxed into sleep. In the morning they would need to clean more thoroughly and probably throw out these sheets due to the bloodstains.

Or maybe not. Maybe he’d keep the sheets as a reminder. He needed to think about the future, about what to do when inevitably either he or Leah got too old. And consider what the pack would do when that happened. Who else was there who could and would take responsibility when Bran himself hesitated?

He held Leah close to him, his wolf held Leah close to him, and he thought about her first statement, about Charles’ question. What would be different if he loved Leah?

What would be different if he forgave his wolf for being the monstrous means by which his mother had shackled him?

Even the thought made him grimace, but he forced himself to consider it. He was the Marrok and he could not shirk his responsibilities again. He could not let fear and hatred and ancient history control him. If he was the Marrok, he had to be the Marrok. For the first time in centuries he reached inward towards his wolf without it being an emergency or under duress.

His wolf was there, as always, a massive creature of power and will and savagery. But rather than the rage he expected, there was possessive contentment. They pulled Leah tighter to them, feeling her heartbeat resonate through them. Here in this bed, his mate in his arms, his pack in the surrounding town, Bran’s wolf could understand peace.

Bran had reached an accord with his wolf before, sunk in despair and rage, brought together by a common goal to kill his mother who had enslaved them.

Maybe it was time, time and past, to again seek common ground with his wolf, now when they are both content and empowered, this time in order to love his wife who had enthroned them.


End file.
